A Daughter’s Secret. Anne Bennett

       SIX

      Lily Henderson was making her way home. Usually she didn’t return until much later, but the rain had kept the punters away that night. In the end, she was so chilled she had gone into a public house for a few gins to chase the cold away. As she swayed her way home, she almost laid her length on the cobbles when she stumbled over Aggie. At first she thought it was just a pile of rags, and complained loudly at the stupidity of people throwing old clothes into the street to trip up innocent people going about their business.

      Her strident voice semiroused Aggie, and she groaned. Immediately Lily stopped her complaining, not entirely sure if she had really heard a sound or not. But then it came again. Lily fell to her knees and whistled in astonishment when she felt Aggie’s saturated coat. She worked her way up her body until she reached the face, and assuming by the bonnet that the figure was a woman, she tapped her cheek lightly.

      ‘Come on, ducks,’ she said, and when there was no response, the smack was a little harder. This was followed by a shake, but the woman continued to lie so still and silent that Lily was alarmed. If they didn’t get her indoors soon, the girl or woman, whatever she was, would die. She set off for home to get help, hoping and praying that there was someone in who had also returned early.

      The houses in Belgrave Road were large terraces. Lily shared one of these with other ‘ladies of the night’. Each had her own room, and there was a larger room downstairs that they used as a sort of sitting room. They got on well enough, for each had her patch and none impinged on the others.

      Susie Wainwright, who was much younger than Lily, had just got in. She had changed out of her wet clothes and was drinking a cup of tea in the sitting room. Her feet were bare and she had a towel wrapped turban-style around her black curls. She had no intention of stepping out again that night and wasn’t a bit impressed with the tale that Lily was telling.

      ‘So,’ she said, ‘why are you telling me this?’

      ‘She’ll die if we don’t bring her in, like.’

      ‘Oh, Lily, for God’s sake!’ Susie exclaimed. ‘She’s probably just some old drunk and no loss if she does peg it.’

      ‘There weren’t no smell of booze off her.’

      ‘And just how could you be so sure of that?’ Susie said sarcastically. ‘Your breath is so gin-laden it is nearly knocking me back.’

      ‘All right, but this isn’t about me.’

      ‘All the same …’

      ‘For Christ’s sake, just come and look, will you?’ Lily cried. ‘It won’t take you a minute. It’s no distance from here.’

      ‘You’re a bloody nuisance, do you know that?’ Susie grumbled, getting up and shoving her feet into her still-damp boots. ‘Pass me my coat, you old nuisance, and if this is some wild-goose chase—’

      ‘It isn’t. I just know it isn’t.’

      A few minutes later, Susie knew it wasn’t either. ‘She’s just a bit of a kid,’ she said, looking at Aggie in the light of the matches she had thought to bring with her. ‘Let’s get her inside quick. Your room would be best, as it’s on the ground floor.’

      ‘Yes, I suppose,’ Lily said. ‘She can have my bed as well for now at least.’

      ‘Can’t put her on the bed yet, though, Lil,’ Susie said, as between them they lifted Aggie’s inert body. ‘Her’s wringing wet.’

      ‘Can’t leave her on the bare boards either,’ Lily said. ‘Do her no bloody good at all, that.’

      They manhandled her as gently as they could into the house and then into Lily’s fairly spartan bedroom.

      ‘Leave her down on the floor a minute while I get a blanket off the bed to lay her on,’ Lily said to Susie. Lily set light to the fire that she had laid before she left the house that evening.

      ‘I should take off her coat first,’ Susie advised. ‘It’s that wet, the blanket will be sodden in minutes.’

      Lily saw the sense of that and it was as they eased Aggie’s coat off they realised that the moisture was not just water; some of it was blood running from her in a scarlet stream and covering her dress.

      ‘Almighty Christ!’

      ‘Where’s it coming from?’

      ‘God alone knows,’ Lily said grimly, ‘but we need to find out.’

      ‘Come on, then,’ Susie urged. ‘And quick. This young girl looks in a bad way to me.’

      When they removed the last of Aggie’s soaked and bloodstained underclothes they realised the blood was pumping from inside her and the two women looked at one another.

      ‘God blimey, she’s miscarrying!’ Susie cried.

      ‘Aye, poor sod,’ Lily said sadly. ‘And if we’re not careful we’ll lose her as well as her babby.’

      ‘You’re right there, Lil. I’ll get some towels.’

      They used the towels to pack around Aggie and then Susie rubbed at her shivering body, trying to bring life to it. Aggie’s eyes never opened, though she stopped shivering, and Lily wrapped her in the second dry blanket she had ready and moved her nearer to the fire. ‘Now, we’ve made her as comfortable as we can,’ she said. ‘I reckon that babby will come away before long.’

      The two women sat on into the night, talking quietly together, near the crackling fire. Aggie was hot now, very hot, and Lily knew she had a fever. She sponged her down constantly, listening to her laboured breathing and watching the grimaces of pain flit across her face.

      It was two in the morning before Aggie expelled the tiny foetus from her body and by that time both Lily and Susie were very tired. Lily washed Aggie down with warmed water she had ready and then put one of her own nightdresses on her. With Susie’s help she lifted her onto the bed. She packed her with fresh towels and then raised the bottom of the bed with bricks that Susie had found in the yard to try to prevent her haemorrhaging. Aggie didn’t regain consciousness.

      By the morning the sweating had eased and Aggie’s face had returned to a more normal colour. The fever had broken and Lily breathed a sigh of relief.

      ‘Come on,’ Susie said. ‘I’m fair jiggered, but I will give you a hand hauling down one of the mattresses from the attic because you will never manage it alone.’

      Lily was glad of Susie’s offer, for she had thought to just curl up on a rug. It wouldn’t really matter where she lay, she thought, as they struggled to bring the mattress down the stairs, because she was so tired she could have gone to sleep on a clothesline.

      ‘Where d’you want it?’ Susie asked as they pulled it into the room.

      ‘Right beside the bed,’ Lily said, ‘so I will be on hand if I am needed. And you best seek your bed before you fall to the floor in sheer weariness.’

      Susie went thankfully. Lily turned to the girl on the bed. She noted her face was as white as the sheets Lily had pulled up to her chin, and her dark brown hair, released from her plaits, was fanned out on the pillow.

      ‘Who are you, bab?’ Lily murmured almost to herself. ‘And what man did the dirty on you, eh? Susie is right, you are very young.’

      She didn’t expect an answer – the girl was still unconscious – and with another sigh she got to her feet, made up the mattress and undressed before slipping